3 Ways to Say ‘Try Your Best’ in Chinese

Our follow-up #Grammar post yesterday was supposed to be about the difference between 尽力 jìnlì and 尽量 jìnliàng, but @ulaelfatih asked in comments – how about 努力 nǔlì? So let’s look at 3 phrases today!

尽力

We looked at 尽力 jìnlì (“to try one’s best”) yesterday. When you say that you 尽力 jìnlì, it means you put all your effort into a task – often without thinking. So there is always a chance of failure 👀

尽量

尽量 jìnliàng is very similar to 尽力 jìnlì, except that it’s an ADVERB. So you’ll have to add verbs after it:
💪尽量想办法 jìnliàng xiǎng bànfǎ – to do everything to find a solution

努力

Now, 努力 nǔlì is probably the coolest of them. When you “努力 nǔlì do something”, it means that you don’t just put all your effort into it – you do it WISELY. So the direction of your effort is right, and you’re very likely to succeed🚀

努力 nǔlì can be an adverb, followed by verbs:

🧠 努力学习 nǔlì xuéxí – to study hard
🤓 努力做好(我的工作) nǔlì zuòhǎo (wǒde gōngzuò) – to put best effort (into my work)

And it can also be a verb, appearing on its own:
↗️ 继续努力 jìxù nǔlì – to keep working hard

Example of Using 尽力，尽量，努力

Now imagine someone gives you a very difficult task – say, to move a train 🚋🚋🚋

💪: You could 尽力 jìnlì, put all your effort into it, and tell your boss that you’ll 尽量去推 jìnliàng qù tuī – go and do your best pushing it.

Then you’d probably fail, but at least you could say 我尽力了 Wǒ jìnlì le – I tried my best.

🧠: Alternatively, you could be 真努力 zhēn nǔlì, really diligent, and 努力去想办法 nǔlì qù xiǎng bànfǎ – go and do your best to solve this task.

Then you’d probably use your brain rather than hands, and find a way to get the train moving!

(No idea how, but if you 继续努力 jìxù nǔlì, you’ll probably find a solution online😂)

⭐️⭐️⭐️

Do these 3 phrases seem more clear for you now?
Can you make your own, better examples?

@hadouken88: 多谢!!!!!

@yourmandarin: @hadouken88 不客气☀️

@moos20081960: 🙌

@luzby_nadyn: 老师总是尽量满足我们的要求。

@yourmandarin: @luzby_nadyn 👍👩🏻‍🏫

@ulaelfatih: 1-我努力完任务 。 2-我已经尽力了，可是我还不会说中文 😅 3- 我尽量会学习

@yourmandarin: @ulaelfatih 🏅👍 非常好！(3 – 我*会*尽量学习 / 我*要*尽量学习)

@ulaelfatih: @yourmandarin thanks for the correction , 👍☺

@l00m4ever: 我尽力尽量努力😁🤭

@yourmandarin: @l00m4ever 🏋️‍♂️

@jonathangatson: Get another train 🚂 to push or pull it

@yourmandarin: @jonathangatson 😂 Perfect

@kkxinfu: Is it jin4liang4 or jin3liang4?

@aubvley: @brigittelll

@brigittelll: @aubvley Love this

@svorcik108: 哦，现在终于很清楚！谢谢啊！

@kiana__z.n: @kkxinfu jin3liang4

@dimasokowati: Superb explanation. 非常感谢你🙏

@morningcassava: 我繼續努力學習中文。